1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electric current-producing cells, and more particularly to such cells employing specified cathode-active materials comprising or derived from ammonium-molybdenum-chalcogenide compounds.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There has been considerable interest in recent years in developing high energy density batteries for voltaic cells. Exemplary of the developing systems is a high energy density electrochemical cell utilizing intercalation compounds of the transition metal chalcogenides as cathode-active materials and using alkali metal anodes, as set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 4,009,052. U.S. Pat. No. 3,915,740 describes a cell having lithium anode-active material and MoS.sub.x (where 2&lt;x&lt;3) as its cathode-active material, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,864,167 describes some fibrous transition metal trichalcogenides as cathode-active materials. U.S. Pat. No. 3,655,585 describes a cell utilizing as cathode active material vanadium pentoxide, prepared by the thermal decomposition of ammonium vanadate.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,898,096; 3,925,098 and 4,003,753 describe electrochemical cells having alkali metal anodes, e.g., lithium, having molten salt electrolytes, and having cathodes containing chalcogenides such as Cu and Fe sulfides, Ni sulfide and oxide and molybdenum sulfide, as well as potassium thiomolybdate K.sub.2 MoS.sub.4.
The compounds utilized as the cathode active materials in the cells of the present invention are ammonium-molybdenum-chalcogenide type compounds. In this regard, it should be noted that ammonium-metal-chalcogenide compounds are known, as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 2,435,380. However, notwithstanding the considerable variety of high energy density electrochemical cell systems which have recently been developed, it is believed that the particular cells of the present invention containing the ammonium-molybdenum-chalcogenides have not been heretofore disclosed or rendered obvious.